11.02.09

Summary: Agricultural (GM), pharmaceutical and educational interests unspun, backed by some of the latest news

FOR those who are not familiar with the darker side of the Gates Foundation, background information is required. A lot of the press is owned by the same people who use it to glorify their deeds while omitting what deep down they know to be their real interests.

Recently there has been a lot of coverage about Bill Gates; it’s a lot to do with his patent games in Africa [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] (euphemism “green revolution”, as we found out a week ago), not just his tax-exempt Gates Foundation.

The Monsanto affair grows stronger as more and more money is getting pumped into its patent-based business. In the following new article we have found the term “green revolution” again (a revolution whereby impoverished populations become dependent on US patents) and Gates is said to be investing a billion dollar in this. It’s not a charity, it’s an investment, a business activity.

Worth more than $40 billion, Microsoft founder Bill Gates could buy the world a Big Mac. But he’s more interested in helping fund a new green revolution, and he’s telling the world it should be “greener than the first.”

It has nothing to do with green. Daringly enough, Gates denounces opposers of this “revolution”, calling them “environmentalists”. If this revolution is truly green, then how come “environmentalists” (as Bill Gates arrogantly calls them) oppose it so strongly? We gave some academic papers on this.

What we’re not supposed to know is that by “global health” Gates refers to the very same pharmaceutical giants whose patents he invests billions of dollars in [1, 2, 3]. Mainstream sources like AP are using sob stories to make it look so benign and even benevolent. Reuters does no better; it sometimes seems as though the Gates Foundation — like Microsoft — relies a lot on marketing and PR. The “permissible” press unquestionably passes personal spin without delving into the real issues. That’s not investigative; it’s a disgrace. Only one major newspaper appears to have done its homework.

The Gates Foundation is offering up to $250,000 apiece to states that want to apply for $5 billion in federal grants to help reform our nation’s school systems.

[...]

The Associated Press story noted that there is a joke going around that says the real secretary of education is Bill Gates. To us, that’s no joke.

Of course it’s not a joke. It’s an exaggeration, but in essence it is true that no-one perverts the education system more than Bill Gates. He even insults the intelligence of the US population in order to justify hiring people in other countries (or importing them), then paying them a lot less for a lot more. The Abramoff story is an eye-opening must-read because there are parallels.

The Gates approach may be radical, but in Memphis and beyond the circumstances call for a non-traditional approach and as much innovation as the system can muster.

More intervention by Gates is being used to keep education captive. Education is what shapes tomorrow’s generation and Microsoft wants its share of the curriculum. Goldman Sachs, which we’ve mentioned a lot as of late [1, 2], does the same thing at the moment (while stealing money from the public). It is a PR move that also returns greater political influence and defense from criminalisation. For Goldman Sachs, to throw $200 million into education and receive several $billions in bailout money is basically to deceive the public, which essentially funds Goldman Sachs through debt. Is Goldman Sachs throwing 1% of the money it stole from the public back into the public? Of what benefit is Goldman Sachs to society then? Other robber barons have used precisely the same tricks for centuries in order to keep the masses whom they robbed off their backs.

On the face of it, the basic trick of the Gates Foundation (tax-exempt, money-generating business and public influence vehicle disguised as a “charity”) has an analogous new one in China, inspired directly by Gates. Check out this new article.

The assets to be transferred to the charity will mainly include stakes that Chen owns in publicly traded companies such as Tsingtao Beer, Yunnan Baiyao Group, and some stock from his own Newhuadu Industrial Group. These will altogether account for 45 percent of his total assets according to current market value, Chen said at a media briefing in Beijing yesterday.

Even beer is being invested in. Similarly, the Gates Foundation invests in alcohol, tobacco, and oil. That’s a fact.

In our previous post about the Gates Foundation and Microsoft in education we also mentioned the role of the United Nations (UN) staff, with whom Bill Gates tightens the relationship. UN staff is now literally hanging out in Bill Gates’ own mansion and the following new report reveals an important conflict of interests:

Microsoft’s Andrea Taylor Named University Trustee

[...]

Her parents attended BU. So did two uncles, her sister, and her former husband. Her mother’s papers are archived at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center. Now Andrea Taylor, director of North America Community Affairs for Microsoft Corporation and a delegate to four UN summits, is joining the University’s Board of Trustees.

Here we have another university that falls into Microsoft’s hands. Microsoft is among the decision makers, just like in the Open University [1, 2] which admitted Martin Bean. More interestingly in this case, Andrea Taylor is also a delegate (for Microsoft) at quite a lot of UN summits. Is Microsoft engaging in politics and diplomacy quite so openly?

Through Microsoft’s program, Elevate America, 19,200 vouchers for computer training will be given to Mississippians, regardless of their employment status, over the next 90 days.

“Elevate America” is an anti-GNU/Linux and anti-Free software push. Is Microsoft trying to prevent vouchers that it pays for from being redeemed as non-Microsoft products? Is it trying to buy the hearts of men, women, and children? Why Mississippi anyway? And more importantly, why now? █

Share this post:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

The lunacy of the EPO with its patent maximalism will likely go unchecked (and uncorrected) if Battistelli gets his way and turns the EPO into another SIPO (Croatian in the human rights sense and Chinese in the quality sense)

Another long installment in a multi-part series about UPC at times of post-truth Battistelli-led EPO, which pays the media to repeat the lies and pretend that the UPC is inevitable so as to compel politicians to welcome it regardless of desirability and practicability

Implementing yet more of his terrible ideas and so-called 'reforms', Battistelli seems to be racing to the bottom of everything (patent quality, staff experience, labour rights, working conditions, access to justice etc.)

"Good for trolls" is a good way to sum up the Unitary Patent, which would give litigators plenty of business (defendants and plaintiffs, plus commissions on high claims of damages) if it ever became a reality

Microsoft's continued fascination with and participation in the effort to undermine Alice so as to make software patents, which the company uses to blackmail GNU/Linux vendors, widely acceptable and applicable again